Author S. T. SANCHEZ: Author Interview with Dale Lehman author of Howard County Mystery Series

Dale, thanks for being with us today. Dale Lehman is the author of Howard County Mystery Series. Tell us a little about yourself.

I'm a veteran software developer, amateur astronomer, and bonsai artist in perpetual training. My wife of 40 years and I have 5 children, 5 grandchildren, and two feisty cats. We live in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, although I'm originally from Ohio. In addition to the novels in my Howard County Mystery series, my writing has appeared in Sky & Telescope and in a couple of software development journals.

40 years of marriage! That's impressive. I just celebrated my 16th. Congratulations! What got you into writing Dale?

I've been writing since childhood. I think it may be genetic. My father also wrote stories and poetry, although he didn't share much of it until near the end of his life. One of my distant great uncles wrote a fictionalized account of my great great great grandfather's epic migration from south central Ohio to western Ohio in the mid-1800's. In an introduction he wrote to that work, my father commented that the Lehmans have always been storytellers. That said, it's been a long road. My work only started approaching publishability in the late 1990's.

I think sometimes it does run in the family. My father published his first novel a few years ago. He wrote a historical fiction novel about famous bank robbers he came across while doing family history. Sounds like we have a lot in common. Will you share a short excerpt from one of your novel's?

This is from my forthcoming novel, Ice on the Bay:

Once they were in the car and on the way, Churchill decided it was time for conversation. "What made you decide to become a detective?"

Although it seemed trite to him, Peller played along. He'd been asked the question so often over the years that the answer had become reflexive. "Columbo."

She grinned before noticing he was serious. "Really?"

"Really. In my childhood, I thought he was the cleverest guy on the planet. I liked the trench coat, too, and the fact that he didn't carry a gun. He did everything with his mind."

"You don't wear a trench coat, do you?”

Peller couldn't help but crack a smile. "No. Should I?"

"You'd look good in one. What about the gun? Do you carry one?"

"Of course."

"You have it on you now?"

"I do."

She looked him over as though searching for it. "Ever use it?"

"When necessary. Fortunately it usually isn't."

Talk of guns stole some of her cheer away. Peller thought she looked pensive.

"Ever kill anyone?" Churchill kept her eyes on the traffic.

Ah, he thought, that would do it. "Once."

She started to ask but decided against it.

It was a rough memory: a bad incident on a day connected to Sandra's fate. He didn't care to talk about it, but he felt he owed her some explanation. "A gang of thugs ambushed my team. They only had knives, but they got the jump on us and cut up a few cops pretty bad before we took them down. I killed one of them. Shot him in the heart point-blank. I can still remember the look on his face."

Timidly, she touched his shoulder, just for a moment, then drew her hand back. "Pain? Fear?"

Peller shook his head. "Surprise. I think he'd just learned he wasn't invincible."

Churchill considered that. "How did you feel afterward?"

"Horrible. About a number of things. But Sandra was there to . . ." He cut himself off, realizing it might be awkward for Churchill to hear that part.

She stared at the taillights before them as though hypnotized. "She was your anchor, wasn't she?"

Peller nodded.

"What's your anchor now?"

Sandra. Of course, Sandra. She always will be. That's what he told himself, and in some measure it was true. Yet often, he couldn't deny, he merely drifted from one day to the next without charts or rudder or anchor. He got up, went to work, did his duty, returned home, went to sleep. He had no purpose outside of his work, no higher calling, not even a hobby. His only goal in recent years had been to survive to retirement and move to Denver to be near his son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

When he didn't answer, Churchill graciously changed the subject. "Bacon cheeseburger with large fries and a large iced tea. You can pick the brand."

"Yes, ma'am," Peller said. Be it only fast food, it was a welcome distraction.

I have to agree with Pellar, I loved Columbo. He was a great detective. Dale since you started writing have you been given any helpful advice?

I once received some very helpful feedback from an editor to whom I'd submitted a short story. They had a form rejection letter, but it included a checklist of common errors they could mark. In my case, they had marked a paragraph titled "fast forward." The detail talked about writing that sounds like a tape recorder on fast forward. Slow down, they said. Take your time, develop the details that immerse readers in the world you're building.

I have had that problem too. I am thankful for good beta readers that are willing to give me honest feedback. Currently, what are you working on?

My editor-wife and I are working on final edits to Ice on the Bay (Howard County Mystery #3). I've also completed an SF/humor novel titled Space Operatic about a hapless opera company trying to make a living on the fringes of the solar system. I've started work on HCM #4 (no title yet) and a crime/humor novel.

You sound busy. About two titles at a time is all I can work on. I like to be able to jump back and forth when I am getting bored, but I think I'd get too confused if I threw another work into the midst. Tell us a little bit about your main characters

My Howard County Mysteries feature a trio of detectives, Detective Lieutenant Rick Peller and his proteges Detective Sergeants Corina Montufar and Eric Dumas. Peller's wife Sandra died four years before the start of the series in a hit-and-run. In True Death, the story of that tragedy is told. He still converses with her, and she sometimes intrudes into other people's dreams and thoughts. In Ice on the Bay one of Peller's colleagues tries to fix him up with a friend. Peller kind of resents it but starts to develop a friendship with the woman anyway. I'm not sure where that's going to go yet. We'll see. In the meantime, Peller doesn't have much in his life outside of work, although he enjoys talking with his son and grandchildren, who live across the country in Denver. In many ways, he's still trying to recover from the loss of his wife.

Corina Montufar came to the United States from Guatemala with her parents when she was a teenager. Her family is of course Catholic, but she drifted away from the Church while attending the police academy, which was a rough experience for her. She's developed a bit of a hard shell, but is now finding her way back to her religion. She has a close-knit family but her mother died some years back from cancer and her father, afflicted by Alzheimer's, is hospitalized in serious condition in Ice on the Bay. As the novels progress, she and Eric Dumas become romantically involved.

Eric Dumas has a difficult past. He grew up in Texas. His father left when he was young, and his mother ran off with his sister, leaving him in the care of an uncle. As a young police officer, he discovered that his cousin was dealing drugs and turned him in, which led his uncle to eject him from the family. He's been a bit of a loner since that time, although he's managed to bury his past and maintains a generally upbeat attitude. His growing relationship with Montufar, however, inadvertently reopens some of those old wounds.

Each of these detectives brings a particular strength to the team. Peller is extraordinarily observant, Montufar has a strong analytical streak, and Dumas tends to be intuitive.

Sounds like a unique and interesting team, and with a character from Texas, what's not to love! Of course as a native Texan I might be a little biased. How did you decide on what to title each book?

The Fibonacci Murders is straightforward description, being about a series of murders based on the Fibonacci series, a mathematical sequence in which each number is the sum of the previous two. True Death popped into my head as a good title, before I had a story. I'm not sure where it came from, except it likely had a religious/spiritual prompting. Ice on the Bay takes place during one of the coldest winters in recent memory. It occurred to me as a title when I was driving over the Francis Scott Key bridge during that exact winter and saw ice covering the Patapsco River, the tributary of the Chesapeake Bay that flows out from Baltimore.

Dale, what is the easiest part of the writing process? What is the hardest?

I find working out plots and subplots is generally the hardest part of writing a novel. I am no good at outlining, so I just try to have a general sense of what's going to happen and then plunge into the writing. Later I have to straighten out all the things that don't work. I'm not sure what the easiest part is. When the words are flowing, it's all pretty easy. When they aren't, it's all frustratingly hard!

Do you have people read your drafts before you publish? How do you select beta readers?

Since I met her in college, my wife has been my primary reader/editor/critic. Lately I've had a few friends and family read some of my work and give me feedback. It's important to select people who will give you honest feedback. Friends and family aren't always the best at that, but in my case I'm fortunate to be surrounded by people who are willing to be straightforward with me.

I agree it can be hard to find people who are willing to be honest with you. I love getting my manuscript back marked up in red. I'd much rather find out now then before something goes to print. Who designed the artwork for your cover? Or did you design it yourself?

We generally design covers ourselves, using photographs and artwork licensed from DreamsTime.com.

In your novels, which character is your favorite?

I like all my characters, for various reasons. The characters I've found the most fun to write, though, are stars of my crime-humor novel in progress, Bernard and Melody Earls. Bernard fancies himself a high-class sort even though he isn't well off. He's very clever and always carefully researches and plans the theft of the valuable objects they seek to nab, but things never quite work out for him, largely because of Melody. Melody is a beautiful kleptomaniac with a strong airhead streak, but she's such a wonderful person that it's impossible not to fall in love with her. The whole world does. Good thing, too, because she brings to their partnership the luck that Bernard so desperately needs. And although she makes his life a challenge, he wouldn't trade her for anything, and she's absolutely head over heels in love with him. I first introduced Bernard and Melody as a joke in a flash fiction piece for the weekly competition at Indies Unlimited (www.indiesunlimited.com). They then turned up in two other stories, and I liked them so much that I wanted to put them into a novel. And there they are.

Since you wrote in this genre, do you think you will ever write in other genres?

I used to write almost exclusively science fiction. Since I started writing mysteries, I've pretty much only written that, but with Space Operatic I've returned to SF. I do enjoy humor writing, too, and am currently mixing that in with the other genres.

I hope to try my hand at other genres someday. I love fantasy. So for now as long as the ideas keep coming I will probably stick to it. What advice would you give someone who is considering publishing? Should they consider traditional or self-publishing?

There are advantages to both, but I think anyone just starting out and going the self-publishing route should be cautioned against publishing too quickly. Writing is a skill, and like any other skill it must be developed through long practice. Many self-published authors rush to publication before they have developed sufficiently as writers. I wrote short stories for a couple of decades, followed by four novels, before I started receiving encouragement from the editors and agents to whom I was submitting (which means they saw some merit in my work). Then I had the misfortune to land an agent who was actually a con artist. After that bad experience, I stopped writing for 10 years. Since I restarted, I've written four novels and only now feel that I'm back where I was when I stopped. I rather wish I had held back on publishing The Fibonacci Murders. It's a good story and readers seem to enjoy it, but I can now see a number of problems that weren't obvious to me when I wrote it.

That's great advice. I would caution everyone to be careful, I too had a bad experience with a con artist. They are out there and prey upon new authors. Any last words?

For writers: Keep writing and always seek to write better today than you did yesterday. For readers: I try to live by my own advice. I think you'll see improvements in my work as you progress through my novels. Constructive criticism is always welcome, so please leave reviews or contact me on social media if you'd like to share your comments on my work. Thank you!